Thursday, January 25, 2007
Independents
I was listening to NPR yesterday morning and the piece was about how the "independent" movement, I guess in California particularly, is gaining steam. They quoted one guy from CA, who I guess checked "decline to state" on his voter registration info and he literally said the following, ("literally", except for the fact that I'm paraphrasing). He says, "A typical republican is a christian conservative and a typical democrat is an ethnic minority and I'm neither, so I consider myself an independent."
Huh?
I guess the part of "I'm neither" is probably not a lie, and of course it is always fun to think of Republicans as fat white guys or old super-religious ladies or rednecks or homophobes, but what about his characterization of Democrats? It blows my mind that that is the reason this guy is not a Democrat and feels a need to make an exception of himself. That alone seems very self-serving and self-important to me.
This goes back to my central mindset of the past 6 years, best expressed by Janeane Garofalo (again paraphrasing), "It is getting to the point where being a Bush supporter is a character flaw."
Because at this time, in these conditions, if you disagree with the Bush Adminsitration as an entity AT ALL, then you must put yourself in diametric opposition to them. Not 120 degrees away in some "independent" category because you aren't black, but 180 degrees, in a far away, directly opposite position and you must push.
The point is that you don't give in to someone who is behaving badly when they make some small overture. You punish them when their backs are against the wall. That may not be the way politics works or the way the Democrats in the Senate should behave, but for me and the rest of the electorate who disagree in large part with the Bush administration, this is exactly how we should unite.
I was listening to NPR yesterday morning and the piece was about how the "independent" movement, I guess in California particularly, is gaining steam. They quoted one guy from CA, who I guess checked "decline to state" on his voter registration info and he literally said the following, ("literally", except for the fact that I'm paraphrasing). He says, "A typical republican is a christian conservative and a typical democrat is an ethnic minority and I'm neither, so I consider myself an independent."
Huh?
I guess the part of "I'm neither" is probably not a lie, and of course it is always fun to think of Republicans as fat white guys or old super-religious ladies or rednecks or homophobes, but what about his characterization of Democrats? It blows my mind that that is the reason this guy is not a Democrat and feels a need to make an exception of himself. That alone seems very self-serving and self-important to me.
This goes back to my central mindset of the past 6 years, best expressed by Janeane Garofalo (again paraphrasing), "It is getting to the point where being a Bush supporter is a character flaw."
Because at this time, in these conditions, if you disagree with the Bush Adminsitration as an entity AT ALL, then you must put yourself in diametric opposition to them. Not 120 degrees away in some "independent" category because you aren't black, but 180 degrees, in a far away, directly opposite position and you must push.
The point is that you don't give in to someone who is behaving badly when they make some small overture. You punish them when their backs are against the wall. That may not be the way politics works or the way the Democrats in the Senate should behave, but for me and the rest of the electorate who disagree in large part with the Bush administration, this is exactly how we should unite.
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